Alders Pause Salon Fees

by Dereen Shirnekhi

Alder Jeanette Morrison: “You can’t charge the person that has one stylist the same amount that you’re charging people that have 10 stylists.” Credit: File photo

The Board of Alders voted unanimously to pause the Health Department’s levying of $400 in annual fees on salons, barbershops, and tattoo parlors — out of a concern that costs associated with the inspection and licensing program have created a “hardship” for local business owners.

Alders took that vote last Monday during their latest biweekly meeting at City Hall.

They voted to approve a proposal put forward by Dixwell Alder Jeanette Morrison and East Rock Alder Anna Festa that pertains to the Health Department’s inspection, facilities licensing, and application fees for salon, tattoo, and body care facilities.

The inspection program and its fees were first approved by alders in November 2023, after city Health Director Maritza Bond presented her department’s plan to bring the city into compliance with a 2019 state law mandating a uniform annual local inspection process for body care establishments — which also include nail salons, massage parlors, and cosmetology facilities — across Connecticut.

Fees amount to an annual $150 licensing fee and $250 inspection fee, for a total of $400 each year. There is also a $100 first-time application fee. At an October 2023 aldermanic meeting, Bond said the $250 would not be a “significant revenue driver” and was based on the cost of labor for staff to perform the inspections.

The inspection and licensing program officially kicked in on July 1, 2025.

Ahead of that start date, Health Department spokesperson Becky Rubenstein said the department reached out to local businesses and hosted informational sessions. There are currently 144 licensed establishments subject to these inspections and licenses, she said.

At last Monday’s Board of Alders meeting, the pausing of fees was listed under the “Unanimous Consent” part of the agenda, meaning that there was no committee hearing before the alders took their final vote. Proposals that the alders vote on via “Unanimous Consent” are items that the alders want to expedite approval of; Morrison and Festa justified this quicker process due to fees being due on May 1.

The now-approved order states that the city increased the cost of fees for these businesses, and that their implementation should be paused so that alders could understand the impact of the fees on local salons, barbershops, and tattoo parlors.

The alders’ vote temporarily halts these fees.

Morrison, who expressed her concern over the burden of the cost for local business owners back in 2023, said in a phone interview that she has heard from her constituents that the costs have been difficult to bear. “$250, that’s reasonable,” she said. $500, she said, isn’t.

Morrison recalled in 2023 meetings discussing an annual $250 inspection charge and a one-time $100 fee.

Asked whether the fees have increased, Rubenstein said that they have remained the same since the program started on July 1, 2025.

“Everyone’s just trying to make some money to be able to live,” Morrison said. “No one’s getting rich off of this.”

Morrison acknowledged that there are costs to being an entrepreneur, and that the city is limited in ways it can bring in revenue without increasing taxes. Still, she said, the city needs to be “realistic” with the fees it’s placing upon people, and it needs to get its process in order.

She suggested a tiered system, where the city charges larger salons the inspection fee and eases costs on smaller ones. “You can’t charge the person that has one stylist the same amount that you’re charging people that have 10 stylists,” Morrison said.

Morrison emphasized that these business owners face many costs. “Some places do generate a lot of money,” she said, though they are “few and far between.”

Rubenstein said that the Health Department “would welcome discussing a tiered system.” She noted that the city’s food service establishment licensing program uses a tiered system, which also requires a one-time $100 application fee and an annual licensing fee ranging from $200 to $500 depending on the establishment’s size.

“The state requires these inspections and it is an underfunded mandate. These salon licensing and inspection fees help underwrite the operational expenses of administering this program and the salaries of the sanitarians who conduct the inspections,” Rubenstein said. “City taxpayers will now have to fully absorb the cost of the salon licensing and inspections, as opposed to the businesses.”

Even with the fees being paused, she said, “As required by state law and local ordinance, the Health Department will continue to license and inspect these businesses to ensure sanitary practices and the health and safety of their operations.”

“That thing is driving me up the walls,” said Samantha Myers-Galberth, owner of Westville salon Style 2000, about the fees. “It’s ridiculous.”

Myers-Galberth said that with Style 2000’s rent increasing every year, paying two electric bills per month (one for lights and one for air conditioning), and other expenses, “we’re just trying to keep our head above water.”

She said that she had learned she was out of compliance with the inspection fees when she received letters from the city beginning in November, which she said threatened to shut her business down if she didn’t pay her fees. Unable to pay it all at once, she said the Health Department let her pay some of it as she worked to keep paying off what she owes. But with it being the start of the next fees cycle, “they started harassing us again.”

Rubenstein said that the Health Department had given businesses extra time to pay their fees in installments given that it was the first year of the program. “Closing a business is always the last resort, however, compliance with the state and local laws is important to ensure sanitary practices are being followed,” she said.

Style 2000 has been in business for 30 years. “They think because it’s a cash flow business that we’re making all this money,” Myers-Galberth said, but that isn’t the case.

With new fees, among other rising expenses and the cost of increased imported hair products, prices would have to go up in order to keep making money, she said. “Then we feel bad,” she said, and business slows down. “We can’t go up. We really have to.”

Style 2000 has regular clients. “We don’t want to frighten them so bad so they go get braids,” Myers-Galberth said, as braiding is not among Style 2000’s services. Besides, she said, their clients are struggling, too.

Morrison said that there will be a public hearing on this matter, though she isn’t yet sure when it will be. At that hearing, she hopes that salon, barbershop, and tattoo parlor owners will come out to discuss the impact of the fees.

She acknowledged that she isn’t a salon owner and has just been hearing complaints. “We might hear that’s fine, I don’t know,” Morrison said about the fees, “but people need an opportunity to express themselves.”